


in this spinning carnival

by sybilius



Series: count to ten and run for cover (B-sides) [7]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Fluff, Found Family, Knife Throwing, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt, character sketch, us against the world, with a melancholy undertone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 22:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: How many acts keep a circus show spinning? How many gasping faces to keep the lions fed, the humans fed, the wolves at bay? How fine must the trapeze artists swing? How close must the knife-thrower brush with death?Tuco Ramirez wishes fairly often that he didn't have to ask those questions.*A reimagining of the 70s trio, in a certain pair of brothers' travelling circus.





	in this spinning carnival

**Author's Note:**

> With my thanks to [morgan-arthur](https://morgan-arthur.tumblr.com/) for the prompt. If I'm honest with myself, I've always wanted a circus au.
> 
> The title of this story, and really the whole thing, is owed to the song ["Knife Thrower"](https://charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com/track/knife-thrower-2) by Charming Disaster

**Act 1 - _shimmer_**

 

There’s something about every act that shimmers.

Oh, Tuco hates calling the shots, he’ll be called on that every time. Even on the stage, even given the way the purple velvet coat with the embroidered R of the Ramirez Family Circus settles well on his shoulders. He always figured it would be Pablo who took up that particular cloth.

But then again, his brother never picked up the shimmer of the silver tongue. And that’s the hook, the lead in. That’s the only part that makes it worth it.

Once the curtain goes up (so to speak), he’s the mouthpiece for every fantastic, unbelievable, greatest-show-this-side-of-Wisconsin act that he’s been able to hustle into joining their crazy travelling theatre show.

Course, crazy attracts crazy, which explains why his lion tamer is picking fifteen minutes to show time to have a mumbled chat about the show’s new knife-thrower.

“Listen, Blondie – I know you think the guy killed someone, but he didn’t last show or the one before, so –”

“No, no – I mean –” he scritches his stubble, darker than the hair Tuco has always suspected he dyes, “You’ve got that– thing with Katie, right?”

He does, the peppy little trapeze artist who likes to show off her contortionist skills in bed. She isn’t ready to settle down, which is why she and Tuco have fun together. He grins out of the corner of his mouth, but then again, this is Blondie asking, now of all times–

“Sure, sure, what does that have to do with this? We’re five minutes to curtain–” he glances back to the crowd, a fair one. Keep their bellies full, for this city at least, and the animals in good shape.

“Well. I was thinking I could – with him…” Blondie trails off.

Tuco blinks, “Wait, you’re asking me if you can fuck Angel Eyes? I mean, sure, but – Blondie, last week you were trying to get me to throw him off for murder? You found out the guy’s innocent? And what about his partner?”

“Susan? They’re not – together, I’m pretty sure.”

“You better be damn sure, Blondie, cos I’m sure she’ll kill you faster than he would, if you’re wrong.”

“But you’re not – angry that I’d be with another man–”

“Minute to showtime!” Pablo calls in, and this time it’s Tuco that blushes crimson, for once. Mierda, that should be Blondie’s job. Damn his timing.

“Course not – the man has looks, that’s part of why I hired him,” he’s already backing out of the tent into the sparkle of the garish lights, the drums and horns starting to sound, “Just don’t let me catch you looking after him instead of the lions, and bring him by for a threesome if he’s interested.”

He turns before he can see Blondie blush and sputter, the snare now reaching fever pitch, here’s the entrance that makes it all worth it –

“Ladies and Gentlemen…”

* * *

**Act II - alone, finally**

 

It’s after the show that I’m able to get a moment’s peace.

Alone, finally, having sent Susan off for whatever errands please her, checking the ornate knives for sharpness and making sure the wooden wheel still spun in the same careful cadence that I was certain would keep her alive.

Solitude is a rare and precious resource, in the life we’d strapped ourselves to blind. But to leave what we had done behind – we had little choice.

“Angel Eyes.”

Solitude. Never lasts long in these parts.

I turn, face-to-face with the lion tamer. Blondie, he calls himself, has been shadowing my steps ever since I joined the Ramirez circus. The so-called family. Now what would family be to two killers close enough to be siblings?

He raises an eyebrow, all that same self-contained coolness he gives to the audience. I’ve seen him with the lions in private. He’s not afraid of them, doesn’t hold them at such a distance either. Fond, is the word for it. The same way he is with Tuco Ramirez.

“You said you’d show me how you did the act.”

“How I did the act,” I articulate carefully. That night I’d been drunk enough to lean forward and whisper it along the beautiful sharpness of his jawline, just to see if it would make him flinch and leave me be.

It seems to have had the opposite effect.

“I practice, that’s all that matters,” I say carelessly, but still, I set the wheel to spinning, one hand on my knives. He stops it with his hand, then moves to put his hand on my wrist.

“Show me. With me.”

A dangerous suggestion. All of it.

I raise an eyebrow, lean in still closer, “You do realize, with Susan, that this isn’t a romantic proposition between us.”

“Suppose it was for me.”

“I’d propose that to be slightly insane,” I back him against the board, press my lips to his carefully. He makes a small noise of dissent, kisses back with all the bite and fierceness I’d expect from a man who lives among lions.

“So, show me?”

I can feel the way he responds to the thought– the eager hardness gathering next to mine. I shouldn’t feel the same way, given that knives have always been work or murder or both –

“Alright.”

His wrists are riveting in their ropy muscle as I strap him to the board, his feet taller than Susan’s, legs strapped at the mid-calf rather than the ankle. It’s reckless, all of it poorly planned.  _Nemo ante mortem beatus_. I have to hold to that, along with my fevered confidence in my skill with the blade.

He insists on the blindfold, practically begs for it with a kiss to the lips.

As I set it to spinning, there’s a thrum in the movement of walking that makes me sincerely hope he has more practical notions of fucking in mind, following this.

Still. The tension in brow beneath the black silk is its own prelude, along with the cold whisper of the blade, tested against the side of my thumb.

I take up my stance, blur my focus to the mere shape of him – land the first knife sharp and square beneath where his legs meet.

* * *

 

**Act III - in dreams**

 

It isn’t the sex, nor the soft and languid moments away from the curtain that brings their trinity to the most transcendent.

It’s the dreaming.

Blondie furrows his brow tightly, trying to reach back to the rapidly retreating rose-tinted big top tent in dreams. No use.

His lips are next to Angel’s neck, Tuco’s arm thrown over the both of them, dusty and road-weary amidst the splinters on their caravan floor.

All three of them have had reason to be exhausted for months.

Where is it they’ve ended up now?

Does it matter, when none of the towns want to hear what they’re selling, when they’re nothing but the mud in the coat-tails of the Ringlings, Carson & Barnes, these people they should be avoiding?

His cigarillos are further than a hands reach away, over the tangle of pale and dark skin to the mere half-foot of space in the largest living caravan the whole damn circus has got? And this is all the three of them call theirs, tattered flannel blanket, sweat, naked flesh, chipped and garish paint on rotting wood.

Blondie knows Tuco would want more to show for it.

He sits up, the glow of the dream still fading. It’s always him in the center ring, those dreams. Somehow he’s found his voice, the right cadence that speaks command to crowds the way it holds his lions in thrall. That brings twice, three times the numbers they barely survive on.

That makes acts leave Ringling for them, not the other way around.

Parts of the dream come back to him, blood-soaked. Half nightmares, bourne from errant thoughts where he wishes Angel’s knives would find themselves buried in that smug Carson’s back. Blondie shudders.

Still. Would solve at least one of their problems, wouldn’t it?

It’s Tuco whose familiar brown eyes blink open first, the grin starting sleepily on the edge of his mustache. God. The way he looks, in the mornings, when he’s not exhausted from trying to keep the damn show running…

…Blondie just wants to keep that, is all. Is that so wrong?

“Forgot to tell you last night, on account of Angel deciding we’d fuck first and talk later,” Tuco rolls his neck upwards. Blondie tenses, at the businesslike drawl of Tuco’s voice. Good news and bad news, he gave them all the same as their ringleader.

Goddamnit, he was hoping to leave that outside a little longer.

“Tell me what?” Angel intones softly from where he’s lying. Blondie realizes belatedly he may have been up before that, “And was that a complaint, about the chosen order of operations?”

“Nah, I just – forgot, is all! Anyways, there’s a new juggling act I got wind of. Chainsaws, ladders, the whole bit, knows a little bit of tightrope. Even Pablo thinks he’s a good idea. Maybe Clinton can train him up, or we can have Wallace lift the ladder while he’s juggling–”

Blondie relaxes, almost laughs a little. A new act, that’s bound to perk Tuco up. They hadn’t had much luck holding on to the ones they had. And Angel was the last new show to join the family. That was over a year ago.

“Could do. Are you mentioning because you want a second opinion on him? Or simply to inform a few others?” Angel reaches for his pipe, nestling in the comforting tobacco he favors.

“Oh. I dunno, really, he sounded exciting. You think?”  
  
“I’d have to see him, of course, to be certain. But I trust your judgment,” Angel, ever reserved and careful. Blondie hadn’t fully noticed how carefully he trusted people until long after they’d been in bed together. Tuco turns to him eagerly, and he manages a genuine smile, nods once.

“I’ll bring him over tomorrow. Only Blondie – maybe don’t decide to sleep with this one, I don’t think we’ve got any more space in this caravan.”

Blondie shakes his head fondly, clipping up his suspenders, “God knows, between you two and the lions, I’ve got enough to keep up with.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments are loved and appreciated <3


End file.
